f
R\ organization
8 What'sNewS
Issue 7* July 1999
The listening brief works both ways - SRT's Matthias Wiemeyer is left ofHulshoff;Jan Willem Krens
and Bruce Tozer (extreme right) take notes
>- continued from page 5
discipline. That's a lot of 'maybes'. What I
know for sure is that in this business you
have to differentiate. If you don't, you're
doomed, so it's eïther one D or the other.
Even the biggest players differentiate. We
may be triple-A, but we've also got to re-
alize we're a medium-sized regional bank.
The only way to be best in class is if you
focus on a differentiating strategy. If you
do, you will get the returns.
Mid-sized, regional bank?
What I'm saying is that the Rabobank is
triple-A and very strong here in the
Netherlands. We have a beautiful retail
network here; and I think in the home
market we are best in class in general
retail banking, and especially such services
as mortgage banking, electronic banking,
and payments traffic. The problem is that
we're not a German bank or a US bank
with a large home market. Our home
market is small, so we're a mid-sized
regional bank.
What does that mean for Rl on the global
playing field?
What it means is that we should be focus
ing, we should be truly differentiating our-
selves. And in certain fïelds we do that.
Such as?
What about securitization? We are doing a
great job. We have rolled out successful
securitization programs in a number of
countries and one could argue that we are
best in class there. Tax structures in the
Netherlands is another area where we are-
extremely creative. We're probably best in
class in those structured transactions here
in Holland. Some of our overseas opera-
tions, such as Australia and the US where
we are focusing on F&A, are also best in
class. And some GFM areas, which are fo
cusing on the structuring capability, are
close to best in class. What is not being
done at RI is identifying the best practices
then exporting those ideas into other
countries. I sense we are suffering from a
'not invented here' syndrome. If there is
hest practice somewhere else we should
have a totally open mind on importing it.
What about the customer focus strategy?
It is too early to teil exactly where we will
be going. The only thing I'm saying here
is: yes, we had a customer focus strategy,
but if I look at the number of customers, 1
don't think it has been a particularly suc
cessful strategy. The number of customers
we have doesn't seem many to me. We're
looking at that now.
What is your take on the matrix versus func
tional structure?
I think we have moved gradually into a
more functional organization which is be
ing implemented in operations and which
works in GFM. Whether to move the
whole organization over to this model is
under discussion. But we want to wait for
the results of the strategie review and once
the strategy is known we'll look at the
right operating model and decide 011 the fi-
nal outcome. It could go three ways -
product, customer or country. Or a combi
nation of all three. The organization setup
today may not be optimal, and I realize it
is not optimal, but a quick fix is not possi-
ble because you need to do the homework
first - structure follows strategy.
Can we go back to the question of buy in?
Your approach has been open communica-
tion on the process of strategie review. Do
we communicate enough?
1 take communication very seriously. Let
me say this: there are companies which
invite the McKinseys of this world into
the board room, then lock them up in a
room for nine months. They come out
with a Grand Plan. That has advantages
in that you can give the process your
undivided attention at the top level. You
don't bother the organization with
uncertainties during the process, you don'
u
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